Aug. 22 (UPI) — Elon Musk tried to convince Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg to get behind a joint purchase bid for OpenAI earlier this year, according to court documents.
The news comes as OpenAI seeks communications between the billionaires as part of the San Francisco-based tech firm’s ongoing court battle with Musk.
OpenAI has filed a subpoena to obtain Zuckerberg’s communications with Meta, which responded that the request is misguided and should be directed at Musk.
Zuckerberg ultimately did not sign the letter of intent attached to a $97.4 billion bid that was rejected by the OpenAI board of directors, according to the recently-released court filings.
Musk later said he would drop the purchase bid if OpenAi remained a non-profit company. The firm contends Musk was insincere as he was trying to recruit Zuckerberg to help finance the bid at the same time.
Musk later sued and lost a bid to prevent OpenAI from becoming a for-profit business. He has filed a pair of lawsuits to block the company’s restructuring, resulting in back-and-forth accusatory social media posts.
Musk helped found OpenAI in 2015 with then-friend Sam Altman as a non-profit firm but the two later had a falling out.
Court documents show OpenAI also accuses Musk of trying to lure its employees with $100 million compensation packages.
In 2023, Musk founded artificial intelligence firm xAI and this year sued Apple over the app’s placement in its App Store.
As of noon Friday, Musk had not responded on X, the social media platform he owns and has integrated with OpenAI’s chatbot Grok.
